At least 50 suspected war criminals are hiding out in the GTA, but Canadian border officials won’t identify them.

Canada Border Services Agency officials were quick to cite federal privacy laws when asked for specifics around the 50 war criminals, who are in the country illegally.

They’re being hunted by the CBSA as part of a massive sweep to net thousands of illegal immigrants in the GTA.

CBSA spokesman Vanessa Barrasa said she was unable to provide information about the fugitives “unless they’ve had public hearings, or their information is in a public domain.”

Barrassa noted Canada’s privacy act states that “personal information under the control of a government institution shall not, without the consent of the individual... be used by the institution” for anything other than the purpose of its operations.

But not knowing details about the suspected criminals and their alleged war crimes has left people in the GTA vulnerable to shady and elusive miscreants, said a long-time victims’ advocate.

“This leaves (people) more than vulnerable,” said Joe Wamback, founder of the Canadian Crime Victim Foundation. “Individuals who come to this country with a criminal background will ultimately end up recruiting younger Canadians into their criminal organizations, be it of their same ethnic background or others, and this will create a much larger problem for us.”

The CBSA is hiding behind one section of privacy legislation and not properly analyzing subsequent sections around exceptions being made should the publics’ interest outweigh someone’s privacy, said another victims’ advocate.

“You need to analyze the privacy act, because there are exceptions in the act for the disclosure of information,” said Scott Newark, one-time Crown lawyer and former special council to the Ontario Office for Victims of Crime. “(This) is frequently used as a justification for a refusal to provide information.”